Black Firefighters Sue Their Way to Success

If you can’t pass a test, just sue the person giving the test. That’s the harmful approach taken today by some minorities seeking government jobs. In an effort to push people at the bottom up by dragging others down, there is a lawsuit ongoing against New York City’s fire department.

Some blacks have done well on NYC’s firefighter civil service test over the past decade. Some have not. A few who didn’t score well sued the city for discrimination. Consequently, a judge imposed a hiring freeze, and no one got hired. As a result, a black man named David Cargin, who scored a perfect 100 on his test (and almost certainly would have been hired), was not hired. His interests, among others, are being sacrificed for the sake of a few disgruntled individuals.

There is a short list of people who benefit from these suits: people who can’t hack it on a test, their lawyers, and a few affluent and educated sympathizers who don’t have to worry about their jobs being given to someone less qualified.

Take William B. Eimicke of Columbia University’s School of Public and International Affairs. Eimicke, who is white, says, “The reality is the department should look like the city it serves.” This is a hypocritical sentiment, unless Mr. Eimicke plans to give his job away. Of the 70 core faculty members in Mr. Eimicke’s department, there are 3 blacks. 75% of the faculty is white, 4% is black. New York City is 45% white and 27% black. If the faculty “should look like the city it serves,” then Columbia needs to start firing white people fast. Perhaps Mr. Eimicke will place his job on the altar of racial quotas. Or is that a sacrifice he prefers to delegate to middle- and working-class whites?

There are at least four serious problems with this suit: First, it betrays the Civil Rights movement, which insisted that blacks could perform on a level playing field. Second, it reinforces pernicious stereotypes. Third, racial preferences are unfair to those who play by the rules, including high-achieving minorities. Finally, promotion by lawsuit is bad for the organizations forced to lower their standards. At root, these problems arise from liberal ideology, which impacts people early on, beginning with education.

The cycle of educational disempowerment starts this way: Some students have poor study habits. Poor study habits lead to poor performance. Liberals feel bad about that poor performance, and they can’t change the students’ culture, so they lower standards (or change answers on test scores). The coddled, poor performers will one day enter the adult world. When they do, they compete on various standardized tests.

Predictably, those former students won’t pass exams at the same rate or score as others. They will then have an incentive to sue their potential employers when they can’t hack it on tests. They are often successful.

The judge in the firefighter case ruled that the department showed bias in the written exam, which whites passed in higher numbers than blacks. Some might wonder what test scores have to do with discrimination. This lawsuit is based on the theory of disparate impact, which allows a plaintiff to show discrimination by showing that blacks and whites score differently on employment tests. Under that theory, evidence of actual, overt discrimination is not required. Most people intuitively understand the staggering logical flaw in that theory.

John Bennett (MA, University of Chicago) is a veteran, writer and law student at Emory University living in Atlanta, GA. He has contributed to The Chicago Tribune, Townhall.com, American Thinker, World Net Daily, and Accuracy in Media.

Ghostwriter

This development should make not just whites,but all decent minorities angry. It's going to bring back the bad old days of racial resentment and segregation.

Pathena

This behavior by a judge shows that he is incompetent – he has never heard of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which commands equal treatment under the law. It is unconstitutional to order that firemen or anyone else should be hired according to race.